letters from England on * visit

[nostamj]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/opinion/L19BUSH.html

Your readers should not go away with the impression that the protests are simply antiwar protests. The willful ignoring of international institutions and treaties is exemplified by the fact that the Iraq war was undertaken without a United Nations mandate. But there are plenty of other examples, from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change to the World Trade Organization rules on tariffs.

People in Britain want to be part of a world where globalization means that nations work on world problems together. We are sorry that our friend the United States is being led away from that position. We would have liked the chance to tell that to your president.

SUE MILLER
The writer is a member of the House of Lords.

Please remember that even if the numbers amount to half a million people, that still leaves at least 59 million of us who are pleased to welcome any American visitors. Don't take it as anti-American; it's probably more anti-Blair, and evidence of our frustration at being dragged into a war in Iraq that most of us felt to be unjustified.

ALAN RUDD
Scalby, England, Nov. 17, 2003

Well, as a patriotic American who, for personal reasons, has lived among the British for 25 of the last 35 years, I can assure my fellow citizens that those demonstrators aren't anti-American. Like millions all over Europe, they simply ask us to be our best American selves, to live up to our founding fathers' most inspiring ideals. Because they admire our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, they're aghast at the lawless prison colony at Guantánamo. Seeing us as an example to inspire other nations, they're appalled by this administration's contempt for Kyoto, the United Nations and international courts.

ERIC VAN TASSEL
Fowlmere, England, Nov. 18, 2003